Robbie Fein

In Memory of Dick Israel (z"l) and his Annual Rosh Hashanah Drash

Dick taught me two powerful lessons about ideas.  The first is that a great idea is nice, but so much more powerful when you make it resonate with other people.  And Dick, in his ever-endless ways, was able to make ideas resonate with so many people.  

As most of you know, I came to Tashlich one year with several different kinds of bread.  I said to Dick that it would be great if we turned Tashlich into a kind of reminder of the sins that we are symbolically casting off with different breads that symbolized different kinds of sins.  I believe that I had rye bread for particularly sticky sins and whole wheat for more complex ones.  White bread challah was for the more mundane ones.  Dick, of course, immediately added a few.  Little did I know that Dick would run wild with the idea (In retrospect, it should have been obvious).  I surely had no notion that it would be published in Sh'ma or distributed widely over the Internet.  It should be clear that Dick's work made the idea resonate with others.  It is especially revealing that Dick was "forced" into finally publishing it after it achieved its own closed-loop distribution network among Jews worldwide on the Internet.

I think that the other thing that Dick taught me about ideas is that creativity often means the synthesis of some simple notions.  The great thing about Dick's annual Rosh Hashanah drash was that he would take the mundane and not-so-mundane events of the prior year and synthesize them into a message appropriate for Rosh Hashanah.    I am reminded of the line in Kohelet, ein kol-hadash tachat ha-shemesh - there is nothing new under the sun.  It's not that creativity requires the discovery of new laws of physics.  A Newton doesn't come along every day.  Sometimes creativity is just synthesizing some common ideas and putting them together in ways that people didn't see before.  

I think it's particularly appropriate that Dick's last drashah at our Minyan was on the mitzvah of tzitzit and, more particularly, t'chelet.  The topic represents both lessons to me.  As Dick pointed out in his drashah, observance of the mitzvah provides us a symbol of everyday life that allows us to derive meaning.  After hearing the drash I looked at Sefer ha-Chinuch where we learn, ein davar baolam yoter tov lazicharon k'mo nosei chotam adonav kavua bichsuto asher y'chaseh tamid v'einav v'libo alav kol hayom - There is nothing in the world so good for remembering as carrying the seal of one's master affixed to one's clothes all the time, so that his eyes and his heart are on it all day.  Who was better than Dick in connecting our Minyan and non-Minyan lives to a jewish text?  

When Dick gave the drash on tzitzit, my mind immediately turned to the connection of Rosh Hashanah and the powerful connection we Minyan members have with Rosh Hashanah and Dick's drash.  After all, isn't Rosh Hashanah a time when we take stock in ourselves and find meaning to take with us through the rest of the year?  

In this regard, consider the listing of chagim in Parshat Emor.  There we learn about all the agricultural holidays and the corresponding sacrifices.  We also learn of Yom Teruah, but not a holiday called Rosh Hashanah.  For me, the drash on this is clear.  We have one time during the year that is a time out not connected to the agricultural schedule.  It's a time of synthesis that we can use for the rest of the year.  

I then thought of another connection between tzitzit and Rosh Hashanah.  The liturgical tools of Rosh Hashanah are the same tools that we have during the year.  The key part of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf Amidah is the malchuyot, zichronot and shofarot sections.  The malchuyot section focuses on the power of G-d.  The zichronot focuses on the historical relationship of our people to G-d.  The shofarot is the synthesis - the symbol of the redemptive experience that comes from our relationship with G-d.  These three sections of course parallel the brachot that surround the sh'ma in our daily tefilot.  

These three sections also parallel the themes in the three paragraphs of the sh'ma.  And, the last paragraph, which focuses on tzitzit, is the redemptive synthesis.  It represents a relationship as close as we can achieve with G-d.  Again, the Sefer ha-Chinuch shows us, vha't'chelet … yirmoz lanefesh shehi min ha-elyonim - the t'chelet alludes to the spirit, which is of the upper realms.  The Sefer ha-Chinuch goes on to quote Masechet Menachot, where we learn sheha-t'chelet domeh l'yam v'hayam domeh l'rakiya vha'rakiya domeh l'chiseh kavod - that the t'chelet resembles the sea, the sea resembles the sky and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory.  

The message of Rosh Hashanah is a message that we can take with us every day.  I think it's a message that Dick gave us every Rosh HaShanah.  I think it's also a message that he gave us every day in the way he ran his life.

I can't leave this topic with one more anecdote about Dick.  After shul on Shabbat Shelach, when he delivered the drashah on t'chelet, after saying my yasher koach, I told him that our friend and former member Peretz Rodman had written his final project for s'micha at Machon Schechter as a teshuvah on the mitzvah of t'chelet.  Dick, recognizing that we could not be sure that the chilazon referred to in rabbinic literature is the Mediterranean snail of today, was, of course, amused!

Yehi Zichro Baruch -- May his memory be a blessing!